Running south beside Mission Bay,
one comes to the place where the city
has stenciled, Courtesy Please,
only it looks to me as if it says
Curtsy Please, and so I do, to the whole
majestic world, and to the joy of mistakes,
and find myself overwhelmed by the wish
to bless everything in sight, and so
with the power in me—inherent
and equal to the power in everything else—
I bless the short man with one good eye
and the pelican as it keels then dives,
and I bless the fish it catches. I bless
the sky above me and the worn concrete
below me, the old men walking slowly
and the beautiful beautiful women.
I bless the ones who built the pavilion,
utilitarian and new. And I bless the short grass,
the playgound equipment, the water,
the mallard ducks, too. I bless each thing
for the pleasure of blessing, imagining
everyone else doing the same,
all of us blessing each other, ourselves,
one elation, indivisible, slivers of god,
with hilarity and just us for all.
Lovely the way you end this one, I had to smile and smile. Still smiling. All the blessing come out of the poem so naturally, wrapped in the details they seem like a tour of the scene wrapped in a blessing. The mistake, though, is the absolute gem, how it prompts the poem and makes for a blessing in itself. HTD
Thank You. Bless you.